#DailyDevotion Believe The LORD Is With You
Exodus 17:4 -7 4Moses cried to the LORD. “What should I do with these people?” he asked. “They’re almost stoning me.” 5“Go ahead of the people,” the LORD told Moses. “Take with you some of the elders of Israel, take in your hand the rod with which you struck the river, and go. 6I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will flow from it, and the people will drink.” Moses did this while the elders of Israel watched him. 7He called that place Massah [Testing] and Meribah [Quarrel] because Israel quarreled there and tested the LORD, asking, “Is the LORD among us or not?”
As a pastor I can tell you I feel for Moses at times. For at least some moment in a pastor’s ministry he can really sympathize with him because he had to deal with at least a portion of his congregation who were grumbling against the LORD. The congregation wasn’t growing, the giving isn’t up to paying the cost of having a pastor and the rest of the maintenance of the building and the like. They’re not attracting a lot of kids. Perhaps a vocal minority doesn’t like the hymnody and the communion policy. So the congregation grumbles against the pastor.
They too throw up their hands and cry to the LORD, “What should I do with these people? They’re almost stoning me.” Unfortunately for the pastor, the LORD doesn’t answer him like he does Moses. If the pastor is fortunate he’ll have other pastors tell him to remain faithful, do the work he has been called to do, and it is up to the LORD for that work to bear fruit. Well the LORD is there for Moses in a very visible fashion. He does speak to him and tell him to gather the elders, grab his stick and strike the rock at Horeb. With the elders watching he does what the LORD says and the water begins to flow for the people. The people now know the LORD is with them.
You however are called to walk by faith and not by sight. You have Jesus’s words at the end of Matthew, “I am with you always until the end of the age.” You have his promise in Matthew 18, 20Where two or three have been brought together in My name, there I am among them.” When you are worried you have Hebrews 13:5 reminding you, “I will never leave you or desert you.” When concerned whether or not the LORD is with you, you have this promise about the pastors he sends to you, Luke 10, “16Anyone who hears you hears Me,…” and in John 20 he says, “23Whenever you forgive people’s sins, they are forgiven; whenever you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” By your pastor the Word of God is preached to you, Jesus baptizes you, and gives you his Supper so you may know he is with you and for you. Times may get tough for you individually and congregationaly, but you have these words of promise you can depend upon because the One who made them is faithful. But if you are concerned you need only do one thing, pray to the one with whom you are one in the Spirit. Make your request known to him with thanksgiving and he promises to hear you. He will do what is right for he is righteous. Then believe he has heard you and given an answer to your pray for as we heard yesterday, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” (Matt. 6) He says in Isaiah 65, “24Then it will happen that before they call I will answer, and while they’re still speaking I will listen.”
Heavenly Father, grant us faith to believe for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, you are always with us, to do for us what is right and good for us. You open your ears to our cries and you what is best for us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.